Golf games
Parful runs this, with a caveatGreenies
Also called Greenie, Greenies pool, Closest to the pin pool.
Greenies is a par-3 side pot: on each par 3 the player whose tee shot finishes closest to the hole wins a greenie, and the pot is shared out by greenies won. On Parful a greenie is a closest-to-the-pin contest with a recorded winner.
- Players
- 2 or more, usually the whole field on an outing
- Where
- The par 3s, one greenie per closest-to-the-pin contest
- Wins
- The recorded winner of each men's or women's contest
- Holes
- Every contest, or only the holes the club lists
- Needs
- Own ball off the tee, so no scrambles
- Payout
- Pot split in proportion to greenies won
How Greenies works
A greenie is the traditional name for winning closest to the pin on a par 3. In the pool version every entrant pays a buy-in, each par 3 produces one greenie, and at the end of the day the pot is divided by greenies won. Four par 3s means four greenies to play for; win two and you hold half the shares.
On Parful the greenie is the closest-to-the-pin contest itself. The club sets up a contest on each par 3 it wants to count, the groups record the nearest tee shot as they come through, and whoever holds the contest when the pool is computed is the greenie winner. The pool measures nothing itself; it reads the winners the contests already hold.
A men's contest and a women's contest on the same hole are two greenies. A contest with no winner recorded, because nobody hit the green, is worth nothing to anyone.
The traditional rule and the Parful rule
In most groups a greenie has a second condition: the player nearest the pin must also make par, or the greenie is void or passes to the next-nearest. Parful does not apply that condition. The closest-to-the-pin winner is the greenie winner whatever happened with the putter, and a club that wants the par rule applies it when it records the contest winner.
The pool can be narrowed to particular holes. Leave the hole list blank and every closest-to-the-pin contest on the outing counts; list holes 4, 7, 12 and 16 and only those count.
Try it
Can we play Greenies in our format?
Derived from the same compatibility rules the scorecard uses, so it cannot drift from the product.
Own ball, individual
Available
Four-ball, best ball, counted scores
Available
Shamble, bramble, cha cha cha
Needs each player's own tee shot and ball
Scramble, foursomes, greensomes, chapman
Needs each player's own tee shot and ball
The pot and the split
The pot is the buy-in times the entrants who have paid; until a first payment is recorded Parful shows an estimate of buy-in times everyone entered. At settlement each payout is the pot times that player's greenies divided by all greenies won in the pool, rounded down to the cent, with the leftover cents going to the player at the top. No greenies, no line; equal greenies share the position and the slice.
Only players in the pool are ranked, so a contest won by someone outside the pool pays nobody and adds nothing to the total.
How Parful runs it
A club manager adds Greenies from the outing's games panel, sets the buy-in, optionally lists the holes to count and picks the audience. Members cannot start a Greenies pool from the group scorecard yet. The closest-to-the-pin contests themselves are seeded on the outing from the club's contest library.
During the round each group records the nearest tee shot on the contest hole from its own scorecard, in feet and inches. A closer entry replaces the leader; an exact tie is shown as tied for the organizer to settle. The standings recompute whenever a contest winner changes. At settlement Parful writes the payout lines and tracks each as pending, paid or waived; it never moves money.
Greenies needs every player to hit their own tee shot, so it is available on own-ball outings and not on a scramble.
Worked example
A worked example: four par 3s, eight contests, ten entrants at $10
The club runs a men's and a women's closest-to-the-pin contest on each par 3, holes 4, 7, 12 and 16. Ten players enter at $10 and all ten pay, so the pot is $100. The greenies pool counts every contest.
| Hole | Contest | Winner | Measurement | Greenie to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Men's closest to the pin | Ben | 6' 2" | Ben |
| 4 | Women's closest to the pin | Maria | 11' 8" | Maria |
| 7 | Men's closest to the pin | Ben | 3' 4" | Ben |
| 7 | Women's closest to the pin | Maria | 9' 0" | Maria |
| 12 | Men's closest to the pin | Cal | 14' 6" | Cal |
| 12 | Women's closest to the pin | No winner recorded | Nobody on the green | Nobody |
| 16 | Men's closest to the pin | Ana | 8' 1" | Ana |
| 16 | Women's closest to the pin | Dee | 5' 11" | Dee |
- The women's contest on 12 had no winner recorded, so it is not a greenie and does not dilute anyone's share.
- Ben and Maria are level on two greenies, so they share first place; the extra 2 cents from rounding go to the first name in the standings, Ben.
- Had the club listed only holes 4 and 16 as greenies holes, Ben, Maria, Ana and Dee would have one each and Cal nothing.
Common variants
- Greenie must be converted
- The nearest player has to make par or better to keep the greenie, otherwise it is void or passes to the next-nearest. Parful pays the recorded contest winner and does not check the putts; a club applying this rule records the winner accordingly.
- Birdie greenie doubles
- A greenie followed by a birdie putt is worth two shares. Parful scores every greenie as one share; the Dots game is where birdies and greenies combine into points.
- Greenies as a per-hole bet
- Each par 3 carries a fixed stake paid by everyone who missed the green to the winner. Parful runs Greenies as one pot split at the end, not as hole-by-hole payments.
- Sandies and greenies together
- One pot paying both bunker saves and greenies. On Parful they are two separate pools, or one Dots game where each feat is worth points.